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Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

theguardian.com

71–80 of 190 posts

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#71
Ironically my credit card info literally got stolen at a restaurant last night and most of the purchases they tried to make were declined hahahahah

Honestly, I really enjoy using my credit card. I can buy anything, anytime, online, the customer service department always resolves fraud quickly, and they even pay me to use the damn thing

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#72
post #3

Luckily, credit cards are really a second tier payment system in most of the EU. Country-specific (debit) cards and the international Maestro payment system are the primary way to pay, along with cash. Apart from online shopping, of course. But even there, you usually have other viable payment options. So it's probably not all that much chaos...

I don't think we live in the same EU.

As far as I can tell "Country-specific (debit) cards and the international Maestro payment" are only common in a couple of really backwards countries.

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#73
post #3

Luckily, credit cards are really a second tier payment system in most of the EU. Country-specific (debit) cards and the international Maestro payment system are the primary way to pay, along with cash. Apart from online shopping, of course. But even there, you usually have other viable payment options. So it's probably not all that much chaos...

Not in the UK, it's all mastercard/visa now.

Maestro is wholly owned by Mastercard.

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#74
Ha! Self-gloating. I cancelled my Visa just yesterday. Part of my self-imposed program to return to a simpler life. But it's some sort of weird Schadenfreude justification that it hasn't happened to me directly.

I'm rolling my life back to the 1980's. :D

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#75
post #10

What was that whole thing about a "cashless society" again? What happens when a major rival actually attacks your cashless society?

Same reason I don't trust cash at all and only trade in goods, services, and jaunty tunes. The value of a dollar could disappear at any moment!

You also shouldn't be holding goods as those can be stolen and services can always be done cheaper. Jaunty tunes are the best investment one can make

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#76
post #5

It isn't down. I work for a large e-commerce company and we're seeing ~10% decline rates, at most, on VISA cards only, and that's intermittent. Overall average decline rate is more like 1-3% when you factor in the intermittentness of it. Still not great, but not PAYMENT CHAOS and not a CRASH OF THE VISA NETWORK.

You forget, everything is chaos in the media. Trains, travel, finance, whatever you like. Chaos sells :)

don't forget tweets, the most dangerous enemy mankind has faced

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#79
post #3

Luckily, credit cards are really a second tier payment system in most of the EU. Country-specific (debit) cards and the international Maestro payment system are the primary way to pay, along with cash. Apart from online shopping, of course. But even there, you usually have other viable payment options. So it's probably not all that much chaos...

Finland here. We transitioned away from national debit cards to Visas (and MC) about 10-15 years ago, I think these days we are almost exclusively Visa/MC. And practically nobody uses cash as primary payment method.

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#80

Ironically my credit card info literally got stolen at a restaurant last night and most of the purchases they tried to make were declined hahahahah Honestly, I really enjoy using my credit card. I can buy anything, anytime, online, the customer service department always resolves fraud quickly, and they even pay me to use the damn thing

That works fine until people sleepwalk into cashless society and then someone from the government will think you are undesirable and delete your assets.
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